The Truth About Attraction: Why “Shallow” Traits Can Make or Break Your Relationship

recently. It was actually a little clip from a larger or longer video. I think it was a clip from one of our, uh, HFM, Help for Men Brotherhood meetings. We have live meetings and discussion forums and everything over at the private community that we call the HFM Brotherhood, and you can learn more at help4men.com. So if you're a guy, need some help, want to belong to a community of like-minded men all helping each other, check that out, help4men.com. But anyway, in the clip, again, it was a small segment of a larger video. I talked about some of the not-so-nice things about the relationship game, such as the attraction to your partner, your connection to your partner, maybe that's a better word to use, is in part, in very large part, let's be honest, determined by some things that some may consider kind of shallow. Some may consider it kind of superficial, silly, and stuff that was from the early relationship past, and it doesn't apply to the current, more deeper, holistically— oh, I guess you could say family-oriented relationship that is now. And unfortunately, in the relationship game, that is not the case. So what the hell am I talking about? Let's look at the two genders here, if you will. What is kind of a sensitive relationship point for each? For men, a sensitive point, one that we hang our relationship coat on, so to speak, is providership. The ability to provide, the ability to earn money, the ability to have a status of importance. Within our community and more specifically within our family unit. We, a lot of men, I can't say this for every man, but for a lot of men, we like to be looked up to in terms of there's Mr. Money Earner, there's the breadwinner, there's the guy that we depend on for our living. There's the guy who, you know, by virtue of his expertise, his craft, his knowledge, his whatever it may be, we can look up to him. And he helps put a roof over our head and he helps put food on the table and he helps the children realize their dreams and become healthy adults. And yes, we are somebody that our spouse, our female spouse, can look up to and say, "That's my man." Now, in today's day and age, far more egalitarian, women are, you know, in a lot of cases out-earning us and so forth. But still, it can be argued even more so, our status and our ability to earn and our ability to earn respect from our spouse in that way is super duper important. Some of us come to this realization of just how important that is when we falter at that, when we lose our step, so to speak, in the job game, career game, whatever it may be. For example, a guy loses his job and he, thanks to the horrible job market out there, is unable to find new employment. Therefore, half or more of the family's income goes bye-bye. And when wife comes home from her job, she sees a man sitting on the couch playing video games. Even if the guy, you know, was just, you know, hitting the street for 8 hours straight and he put out 200 resumes that day and he was on the phone all day trying to get a job, all she sees is guy at home, no paycheck coming in, and her respect for the man slowly but surely dwindles. And yes, as a result, attraction to the man dwindles. A lot of men point to that and say, What a horrible woman she is, you know, for thinking thoughts like that. Thinking thoughts is not the right term, is it? How horrible she is for having very natural occurring feelings such as, my respect for this man has gone down, therefore my attraction to that man has gone down, and therefore, no, I don't want to hug, kiss, or have sex, or do any of those things. I'm kind of mad at you. I'm kind of peeved at you. And I'm kind of, dare we say, kind of disgusted by you because You haven't been doing very crucial man stuff, such as earning my respect by virtue of your career, job status, and so forth. I come home and see a guy playing video games. That ain't cutting it, pal. Some men fight back at that and say, Ralph Brewer, you're kind of propagating a very negative stereotype. You are giving women an out for having these feelings. Guys, regardless of what I say here in the video or in thousands of other videos, that is a very real scenario, and that's going to happen regardless if it comes out of my mouth or not. Ask a multitude of millions of men out there who have experienced just that. Spouse loses attraction to her man, relationship goes down at that point. A lot of men, when I talk about when did the wheels fall off the relationship, a lot of them say a couple things. One is usually it's some kind of major life event. The number one thing I hear is when kids come into the picture, it's so stressful. It's so— it changes the personality of their spouse, and both can't really deal with it very well, and it just all goes to hell after that. And then sometimes it's some kind of major event such as illness, death in the family, or yes, job loss. And to shame the woman for having those very natural feelings of a lessening of attraction and respect towards her man ain't gonna get you anywhere, dude. Still gotta go get a job. And you still have to face the fact that yes, life ain't fair. Sorry. Let's jump over to the ladies. What is something that really bothers the ladies a lot in the relationship game? And that is anything that pertains to looks. Far more of a sensitive subject for women than it is for men. All we have to look at is who has the majority of cosmetic procedures done to them, whether it's surgical or non-surgical. Women by a long shot. Botox, for example, see these little things here? Women don't like these on their, on their, on their face, so they actually go and pay somebody to shoot botulism into their head to kill the muscles there. I guess I'm no expert or whatever, it stops the muscle from flexing and gives that nice smooth appearance. And they get it done here and here and here, everywhere. It gives women that kind of mannequin look to their face. Women pay good money for this. Women pay good money for things such as liposuction, the infamous mommy makeover, which is the removal of skin and excess, you know, fat and skin around the midsection to give them that more of an hourglass figure. Basically, women do a lot of things and pay a lot of money and endure a lot of pain to reverse the hands of time, to mimic youthfulness. They have determined over many generations that that is what gets them the most attention better treatment from society overall. It sucks, but society tends to treat the aging man better than the aging woman. It's not nice. It's not a good thing to say out loud, is it? Especially coming from a dude. Especially coming from a bald dude, as a lot of ladies like to point out to me. Thank you. I know. But that's what it is. And one thing that a lot of women don't like to hear But again, just like with the man and the, hey, if you lose your job, you're less attractive of a partner. Same thing with the women. Visually, if you let yourself go, quote unquote, which means— here's what it means for us guys— if you stop putting effort into your appearance, that's it. Yes, you could be 20 to 30 pounds heavier than what you were when you first met the guy, but if we don't see you getting dolled up, We don't see you putting on that cute little number that you used to put on, even though yes, it may be a size 2 or 3 or 4 bigger than what it used to be. If we don't see you like going to the yoga class or to the gym or to the exercise class, we don't see you, you know, putting on the makeup and getting dolled up for your man when you go out on a date, that makes us think less of you as a spouse. Our attraction to you, yes, goes down. As I've said in countless videos before, there's nothing more ego-stroking to the man. Yes, let's put that out there. And nothing more validating to the man that shows that you as a couple, and him in particular as a spouse, is very important than hearing something along the lines of, "I better do fill in the blank so I can stay sexy for my man." Some women hear that, do the big ol' eye roll like, "Oh, Jesus Christ, here we go." While other women go, "I get it." For the women that get it, they have a better chance of having a romantic, sexy, and connected relationship with their spouse because this takes effort. You got to put in the work. I don't care, ladies and men, how much you say, "I shouldn't have to." Shouldn't. Ugh. Remove that word from your vocabulary, okay? It doesn't do you any good. Sure, I shouldn't have to have a job. My wife should love me and stick by me no matter what, even if, you know, she's the one going out and earning all the money and I just sitting on my butt and play video games all day, she should still love me and still want to give me plenty of sex and everything should be great. No. Wife says, I should be able to chop off all my hair, gain 100 pounds, stop dressing up, stop putting any effort into my appearance, and then basically become like an almost masculinized version of myself who puts zero effort into feminizing and looking like the creature that he fell in love with. I should still get the same kind of level of respect and admiration and adoration, and this man should stick around and do all he can to be my spouse regardless of how I look or what effort I put into my appearance. Sorry, this is real life. It doesn't work that way. What is hilarious, and we've seen this many times, let's say Mr. Jobless and Miss Frumpy Break up. What happens? Oh, dude tries to get a job real quick, doesn't he? I gotta take care of myself now. Now I gotta pay child support and I gotta do this, gotta do that. He finds a job pretty quick. What happens to Miss Frumpy? Oh, she loses those 40 pounds pretty quick. Grows out her hair, hair coloring, nose piercing, maybe a cute little tattoo somewhere. She naturally knows, they both naturally know what it takes to become a hotter prospect in the mating market. What if, what if we both did the same thing while married? Novel concept, right? That's the secret, folks. You got to keep up the act. Yes, act. Sorry, it sounds like a cold term, but it's true. There is a system at play here within us biologically, mentally, however you want to put it. That basically says when we enter into the confines of a long-term monogamous relationship, there is something within both of us that says drop the whole mating game act and become a new thing called a family. We put our domesticity and comfort and stability as a family above all. We stopped the mating game completely. And then we both get pissed when we don't get mating game behavior from our significant other. He stopped being so romantic and loving. She stopped giving me sex. He stopped, you know, leaving me love notes, and he stopped, you know, talking to me about my day. She doesn't blow me in the parking lot like she used to do. You get my point, guys. I know what I just said will hurt feelings, and I'm sure I will cut this up into little clips, and those little clips will hurt feelings, but It doesn't change the fact that this is relationship reality. What's the alternative, guys? Let's go to the dudes. Do you really want a spouse who looks at you with disdain and disrespect, has zero attraction to you, but she still lays down in bed and does the deed with you out of obligation? Is that really what you want? Dude, not good. And ladies, do you really want a guy who doesn't have any respect for you anymore, is just going through the motions, has zero physical attraction to you? He just goes to his— does the paycheck thing, comes home, eats the dinner. Yes, dear, whatever you say, dear, that's fine, dear. And doesn't want to go on any dates, doesn't want to do anything romantic with you or whatever, but just goes through the motions of life. Is that really what you want? By virtue of a lot of you ladies and your post-divorce behavior, it would seem like no, you do want more than that. But do you want more than that with him? If not, why not? Is that something you're willing to work on to get back into the relationship so you can bring the sexy back? As who said that? Justin Timberlake? Whatever. Point is, guys, do you both want to do the work, the shallow necessary work to bring you back together? If not, eh, just let him go. He'll be fine.